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The CITE, a blog published by the National Association of College Stores, takes a look at the intersection of education and technology, highlighting issues that range from course materials to learning delivery to the student experience. Comments, discussion, feedback, and ideas are welcome.

Monday, March 30, 2015

New Site Offers Affordable Path to a Degree

Education-Portal.com started as a way for students to find
inexpensive study resources for exams. The start-up then began creating online
courses to help students pass College-Level Examination Program exams, which
provided college credits for about $80 per course.

The firm recently relaunched as Study.com, offering 19
courses accepted for credit by the American Council on Education and another 30
under review. Upon completion of the course and passing proctored exams,
students can submit their scores to more than 2,900 accredited colleges for
transfer credit and could conceivably earn enough credit to test out of their
first two years of college.

The old website had more than 10 million visitors each
month. The new Study.com site requires a $50 monthly fee, but that provides access
to the site’s full library of more than 1,000 courses and 10,000 individual
lessons.

“This system is designed to be extremely accessible and
can really help students to afford college in a highly efficient way,” Jessica
Bayliss, director of education for the company, told eCampus News.

The classes consist of a series of video lessons that
generally last five to 10 minutes. Students then take the multiple-choice quiz
for immediate feedback. There is also an “Ask The Instructor” link to each
course that allows students to submit questions to an instructor, who will
reply to within a day or two.

“We want to become the ultimate study resource,”
Bayliss said. “That means providing lessons to teach students everything they
would want to learn. So, more specialized courses will be developed. And we
want to expand the age range of students we serve.”